A cost-effective opportunity to own this expansive 1589 "Omnia" (all) edition of Alciati's Emblemata, due to worming (price reflects condition). Several hundred emblems fill this thick edition of Alciati's work.
About Alciati's Emblamata -
"Andrea Alciati is most famous for his Emblemata, published in dozens of editions from 1531 onward. This collection of short Latin verse texts and accompanying woodcuts created an entire European genre, the emblem book, which attained enormous popularity in continental Europe and Great Britain."
"An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was extremely popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries."
"Alciati's work spawned thousands of imitations in all the European vernacular languages: secular, religious, or amorous in nature, emblem books were an integral part of European culture for two centuries." - Wikipedia
"The 1550 Latin edition by Rouille is the first to have 211 emblems (the whole corpus, apart from the so-called obscene emblem; Adversus naturam peccantes) illustrated. Most of the editions are octavos, with elaborate frames, but there were also editions in smaller format, without decorative frames."
About Alciati-
"Alciati was born in Alzate Brianza, near Milan, and settled in France in the early 16th century. He displayed great literary skill in his exposition of the laws, and was one of the first to interpret the civil law by the history, languages and literature of antiquity, and to substitute original research for the servile interpretations of the glossators. He published many legal works, and some annotations on Tacitus and accumulated a sylloge of Roman inscriptions from Milan and its territories, as part of his preparation for his history of Milan, written in 1504–05. Among his several appointments, Alciati taught Law at the University of Bourges between 1529 and 1535." - Wikipedia
Bibliographic Details -
Catalogues note that several printer's of 1589 Paris shared the same printing, but with different imprints on the title page. This is the Jean Richer imprint.
Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 203491, 10 copies recorded in the world's libraries of Richer imprints.
Worldcat OCLC catalogue numbers 491757179, 257931247 and 1041970171.
Physical Attributes -
Measures approx. 17 x 11 x 6 cm. 8to. Old dry leather binding. Page edges sprinkled red. Illustrated. Decorative title page.
Pages - (40), 818, [22 - index], likely a blank missing at end.
Collation - a8, e4, i8, A-Z8, Aa-Zz8, Aaa-Eee8, Eee*1, Fff8-Ggg3 (likely Ggg4 was a blank).
Condition -
See pictures. Binding is very worn and dry with worming and damage to the corners; some cracking at joints and top and bottom of spine are chipped. Binding slightly splayed. A few stray ink marks along text block edge. Book is heavily wormed throughout. A moisture mark from the top edge, worst at front. Some rust spots, dog-eared corners, occasional page-edge chip, some thumbing, occasional stray ink mark, etc. Some ink shelfmarks on pastedown. Title page has some writing at bottom of title page. Text block a little split between Z gathering and Aa. Likely missing a blank Ggg4 leaf at the very end.
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